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About the Head of People role

Head of People

Portfolio: Central Support Service
Responsible to: Deputy Chief Secretary
Responsible for: Senior HR Manager, Policy and Projects Manager, Organisational Development Manager
Grade: Technical Cooperation Officer

Context

This is a key role in delivering our overarching vision of making St Helena a great place to live, learn, work, visit and invest.  Heads of Service are integral to supporting the overall financial resilience of the Public Service and have a responsibility to ensure value for money and return in investment within their Service and across the Public Service as a whole.

Job Purpose

  • Lead the provision of an effective and efficient strategic People function, promoting best practice and consistency across the St Helena Public Service and responding creatively and flexibly to the changing needs of the organisation.
  • Manage the development of strategies and policies that realise the full potential of employees and meet the St Helena Public Service’s goals and strategic objectives.
  • Ensure a safe and thriving environment for all employees, helping the Public Service facilitate positive employee relations through development of appropriate and legally compliant people policies.
  • Deliver a People Strategy with effective employee relations and other underpinning strategies and activities, avoiding proactively and supporting the resolution of workplace disputes, supporting management development, and providing the Public Service with necessary tools to define and influence a positive organisational culture.

Main Duties and Responsibilities

  1. Provide overall management and strong leadership of the People function, including setting the work priorities and enabling a robust and sustainable staffing structure that meet the needs of the Public Service.
  2. Continue to influence and develop the strategic direction of the People function and ensure that people practices assist with developing the culture of the organisation. Support the People function and the Public Service to continue on the journey of learning and development to help ensure a sustainable workforce.
  3. Provide professional support and advice aimed at transforming and developing the organisation, and ensuring that managers are sufficiently skilled and enabled to access appropriate guidance and information to manage their workforce issues.
  4. Lead, facilitate and enable major organisational transformation and culture change through continuous improvement with a view to realising efficiency gains and meeting the needs of the portfolios in the delivery of their strategic and operational priorities.
  5. Attend and provide expert professional advice to the Strategic Leadership Team, and engage with Executive and Legislative Councils, partners and colleagues across the Public Service to deliver the ongoing strategic vision for the People function.
  6. Support the Deputy Chief Secretary, Chief Secretary and Elected Members in developing and delivering the Public Service’s strategic agenda.
  7. Ensure that the Deputy Chief Secretary, Chief Secretary and Ministers have access to the best professional advice and information on all aspects of people related matters. Ensure that the people perspective is fully represented in decision-making and attend Public Service and Ministerial Meetings or Committees as required. Weekly attendance at the Strategic Leadership Team meetings.
  8. Identify and advise the Public Service on priorities, challenges, risks and strategies for improvement across all aspects of people related matters.
  9. Responsible for the strategic planning process for the People function, for appropriate and relevant HR Key Performance Indicators and for the timely submission of progress reports for the same.
  10. Undertake the role of Lead Officer for the Technical Cooperation Management Group and Remuneration Committee, ensuring appropriate reporting and information is supplied to the Committee to allow for scrutiny and oversight of the application of the Pay Policy.
  11. Continue to implement leadership, management development and talent management strategies to ensure effective succession planning.
  12. Lead and drive change projects that improve quality and performance, while providing highly effective management of the service. Continuously look for new solutions and innovative ways to improve working methods and practices to ensure services remain efficient and customer and client focused.
  13. Take a lead role in transforming and strengthening the organisational culture, ensuring that the Public Service Vision, Mission and Values are lived and embedded.
  14. Be the Public Services lead officer for employee engagement and staff wellbeing, including engagement with the Employee Representative Committee, Partnership Forum and promoting and developing a culture of positive partnership working.
  15. Lead the development of effective employment policies across the Public Service in consultation with key stakeholders including Senior Management and the Employee Representative Committee. Develop Terms and Conditions, including pay and reward strategies that meet the needs of a diverse organisation and support flexibility in service delivery.
  16. Responsibility for managing and deploying the Human Resources budget (including the Technical Cooperation Programme budget, in line with the TCMG) and wider resources in order to meet the Public Service’s current and longer-range strategic objectives. Undertake role of Budget Holder supporting the Accounting Officer (Deputy Chief Secretary).
  17. Manage and develop self and others to improve personal and team performance and deliver successful outcomes against plans and objectives.
  18. Ensure the review and update of the Code of Management (CoM) so that there is a single and effective CoM for managers and employees to use and apply.
  19. Promote a culture of strong communication and project team working and encourage staff to use their skills by contributing to corporate projects and initiatives.
  20. Responsible for the effective management and timely resolution of people management issues which may include acting as Investigating Officer or Hearing Manager for senior and/or complex cases.
  21. Completing Manager Self Service (HR21) processes where appropriate.
  22. Manage the efficient and effective use of resources to support activities and to achieve section and service objectives. Contribute to the annual Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) process.

Special Conditions

There are no special conditions associated with this role.

However, for the proper performance of the responsibilities this post will not be limited to normal working hours, the postholder will, in response to the demands of the post, be required to work out of normal working hours.

This job profile is not an exhaustive list of duties and responsibilities.  There may be other ad hoc duties that fall within the remit of the role that the job holder may need to complete.  In addition, the job holder will be required to carry out any other reasonable duties as requested which are commensurate with the grading and level of responsibility for the role.

Person specification

Terms of Appointment

Contract Type:

2 years fixed-term, renewable.

Salary:

£62,000 per annum + 7.5% pension contribution.

Pension:

7.5% of salary in a lump sum at the end of each completed year of contract. Approval can be sought from the Commissioner of Income Tax for the exemption of income tax on Pension Contributions where payments are being made into an approved superannuation or pension fund.

International Supplement (Taxable):

Unaccompanied Couple Couple+
15900 18400 22200

Hours:

Standard contractual hours are 35 per week but for the proper performance of the responsibilities this post will not be limited to normal working hours, the postholder will, in response to the demands of the post, be required to work out of normal working hours.

Reports to:

Deputy Chief Secretary

Probationary Period:

6 Months.

Centre of Duty:

It is a requirement of the post that the incumbent resides in the St Helena for the duration of their employment. There may be the occasional need to travel to Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, as well as international locations, while fulfilling the duties of the post.